Bhajing It Up

I am always on the lookout for nibbles that work with wine - I've even done (and will possibly repeat) whole events that feature a particular type of wine along with some sort of nibbly accompaniment. This year, the border Gods being willing, I intend to do a Rose event with everyone bringing a pink wine and a nibble.

We've been doing take out more than we normally do because of the health situation and one of our favourite local sources is an Indian restaurant that does very nice onion Bhajia - basically sliced onions dredged in flour and spices and deep fried crispy. It has long struck me that this might be a perfect nibbly for red, rose or white wines but I haven' got around to trying it yet. Anyone have experience/advice on this?

Simple recipe here if anyone wants to try them https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/onion-bhajis-raita

[Jenise]

Onion Bhaji (no 'a') was the standout item in a batch of wonderfulness that was my very first Indian Take-Out meal when I moved to England years ago. It has been the hardest to get since. Though many Indian restaurants do fried blobs of potato+ other vegetables they usually call pakoras, the onion-only fritter is pretty hard to come by, at least in America. I would be ready to declare rose a perfect accompaniament if I can come up and share that afternoon with you!

I would be ready to declare rose a perfect accompaniament if I can come up and share that afternoon with you!

That was in fact the plan......

Looks wonderful.

It annoys me, though, when recipes call for chilli powder (using the British spelling) w/o explanation. Do they mean powdered chillies (only chillies) or chilli powder (chillies and typically with cumin, oregano, garlic and salt)? There is a difference.

Here is a more detailed recipe with some discussion

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... ion-bhajis

And a video of how to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAQkdO2bamQ&t=1s

PS - all this Indian food talk has us (SWMBO ad myself) hungry for it - we are going to do take-away tonight and will include an order of bhaji!

Our son spent a couple of days with us at the weekend

He showed me a photo on his phone of some onion bhajis he'd made. They looked pretty good, and they didn't require deep fat frying: he baked them in his oven

He said he'd thinly sliced an onion, salted it then left it for a while to extract water.

He'd then squeezed water out and mixed it with gram flour and a little oil and used hands to shape into small balls which he'd put on baking tray and put in oven at high heat,

It annoys me, though, when recipes call for chilli powder (using the British spelling) w/o explanation. Do they mean powdered chillies (only chillies) or chilli powder (chillies and typically with cumin, oregano, garlic and salt)? There is a difference.

Use whichever you prefer.

Every Indian restaurant's recipe is different. However, I haven't found any chilli heat in any onion bhaji I've had, so I wouldn't use either - just spices maybe.

I'm assuming they mean the first, because the second - which I use in Chilli (sans) Carne - always come with a heat qualifier, e.g Hot Chilli Powder or Mild Chilli Powder. Gosh, the BBC recipe additionally adds a green chilli.....

Don't get me wrong, I love chillies, but Mrs M doesn't and yet she adores restaurant onion bhajis - she wouldn't if they were made with chillies

[Jenise]

And Peter, here in the States chili powders are not identical in concept. Get anywhere close to Cincinnati and it will often or usually, not sure which, contain cinnamon. In Los Angeles, you'd be stoned to death for that.

The Bhaji recipes look good. Bill, I appreciate the one from the Guardian--I *love* Felicity. Her style is unique--full of research and comparisons from multiple sources. And here she references my friend Simon Majumdar (I say this loosely, as he would not I'm sure refer to his friend Jenise as he has many fans), but it's nonetheless true that I exchange ideas occasionally with him on Facebook and two summers ago almost had him convinced to come Dungeness crabbing --he ended up going for lobsters in Maine, imagine that!

[Robin Garr]

Hi, Peter!

This is the bhaji recipe my son sent.

He says

I’m sure I got the recipe off the internet somewhere but here is what I do:

Ingredients:

3 large onions

Sea salt (3 or 4 grinds/generous pinches)

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp ginger paste (or 2 1/2cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled & grated)

¼ tsp ground turmeric

¾ tsp ground coriander

Fresh coriander (finely chopped to make 3 tbsp)

¼ tsp hot chilli powder

100g gram flour

1 ½ tbsp rapeseed oil

Instructions to make 6 bhajis:

1: Peel, halve and finely slice the onions. In a large mixing bowl mix well the sliced onions with the salt and leave to sweat for up to 3 hours. (in a rush can be left for as little as 30 mins, but you can’t rush perfection )

2: Once rested, squeeze the onions to release the water (within the bowl) and then add the cumin seeds, ginger, turmeric, ground and fresh coriander and chilli powder. Give everything a good mix up.

3: Sift the gram flour over the onion mixture and mix well. The water released in step two should provide enough liquid to form a batter and stick the onions together, if a bit dry add a splash of water. Mix in the rapeseed oil so everything is evenly coated.

4: Heat the oven to 180oC (fan), using clean hands make 6 equal sized balls packed tightly and place on a baking tray. Bake for 40 minutes until nicely browned.

I asked him about the chilli powder, he said

Theoretically i think it should be pure chilli powder, but I use the Tesco pot

I looked at it on the Tesco supermarket site
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/p ... /251625429

Ingredients are list there as
Chilli Powder (83%), Salt, Cumin Seed Powder (6%), Garlic Powder (3%), Dried Oregano, Flavouring, Anti-caking Agent (Silicon Dioxide).

But even with 100% powdered chilli, 1/4 of a teaspoon between 6 large bhajis is not going to be felt.

I know you say to-may-toe and I say to-mah-toe but apparently we also pronounce oregano differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eijioOIBzpg

I know you say to-may-toe and I say to-mah-toe but apparently we also pronounce oregano differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eijioOIBzpg

Good grief.

I know you say to-may-toe and I say to-mah-toe but apparently we also pronounce oregano differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eijioOIBzpg

Good grief.

And herb.

[Jenise]

But even with 100% powdered chilli, 1/4 of a teaspoon between 6 large bhajis is not going to be felt.

My thoughts exactly when I read that amount. I'd go with a tsp of that mix or use about l/2 tsp straight cayenne or even more chile flakes. But I like heat.

I know you say to-may-toe and I say to-mah-toe but apparently we also pronounce oregano differently.

Yes, and we say it the right way!!! o-RAY-gunno!

I must admit that we in the Great White North also pronounce oregano the same way as Jenise stated. You may put it down to an example of cultural imperialism on the part of that smaller country just to our South. (They seem to have a disbelief issue with Texas being smaller than three of our provinces and two territories)

Yes, and we say it the right way!!! o-RAY-gunno!

Silly me thinking the E in Oregano was pronounced EE

And herb.

That's a really interesting one. The 'h' is pronounced in UK and not in US


It is one of those words we took from the French, like hotel where the initial 'h' is not pronounced and it stayed like that until the 19th century when 'h' began to be pronounced in Britain.

So America is using the original pronunciation.

Picked up some chickpea flour - intend to try some bhaji recipes - think they might match well with sparkling wine, for instance (as long as I moderate the chile use).

PS - some recipes call for a sauce that is hottish. I intend to do it using a cucumber mint raita that will be more wine friendly.

Tamarind sauce for fried things, please. Or just a squeeze of lemon.

Jeff, I personally would avoid tamarind with a delicate white wine as it tends to be either too sweet or a tad strong, though I am sure it is a teeter totter one could successfully balance with some practice. The raita is a minty cooling sauce that can offset any undue heat (you never quite know how hot a given chili pepper is going to be until you taste the finished recipe.

Onion Bhaji.pdf

My son sent a PDF with photo's of him preparing his recipe onion bhaji, attached to this post

Let me know if you try it

Thanks Peter. That is definitely something I will make as I try to find non frying methods for such items. Will be quite tasty with the seasonings.

[David M. Bueker]

Jeff, I personally would avoid tamarind with a delicate white wine as it tends to be either too sweet or a tad strong, though I am sure it is a teeter totter one could successfully balance with some practice. The raita is a minty cooling sauce that can offset any undue heat (you never quite know how hot a given chili pepper is going to be until you taste the finished recipe.

This is where a good Kabinett Riesling comes in handy!

Excellent. Thank you, Son-of-Peter.

Jeff, I personally would avoid tamarind with a delicate white wine as it tends to be either too sweet or a tad strong, though I am sure it is a teeter totter one could successfully balance with some practice. The raita is a minty cooling sauce that can offset any undue heat (you never quite know how hot a given chili pepper is going to be until you taste the finished recipe.

This is where a good Kabinett Riesling comes in handy!

Yup - and some years ago we did a Riesling offline at a Cambodian restaurant (think Jenise attended) and the Rieslings went perfectly with pretty much all of the food, whether sweet, hot or both.